Nanya Technology to reassign, lay off 600 staff

Summary:Taiwanese DRAM chipmaker is planning to adjust 23 percent of its workforce--either by assigning them to other companies or letting them go--by end-2012 as part of a wider business strategy change.

Nanya Technology is planning an internal reshuffle of its workforce, which would see 600 employees either reassigned to other companies or laid off by the end of the year. This is part of new business strategy aimed at halting sliding sales.

According to Taipei Times on Friday, some 400 employees from the DRAM (dynamic random access memory) chipmaker will be assigned other positions within associate companies under the parent organization--the Formosa Plastics Group. The other 200 will either be laid off, or be persuaded to retire earlier or quit their jobs, said Wu Chia-chau, chairman of Nanya Technology.

The reshuffling of staff will be completed by end-2012, and the number of employees in Nanya will remain at around 2,000, Wu added.

This manpower initiative is part of the DRAM company's efforts to reshape its business strategy and to diversify its products. Nanya Technology plans to focus on manfacturing specialty memory chips, such as products of consumer electronics DRAM and mobile DRAM, he explained.

Nanya Technology on Thursday posted an 11.7 percent decline in revenue to reach NT$1.86 billion (US$63.6 million) in September because of lower shipments. This is lower than the NT$2.11 billion (US$72.1 million) recorded in August. Last quarter's revenue, in turn, fell 35 percent from the second quarter's NT$10.1 billion (U$3.45 billion) to NT$6.55 billion (US$2.22 billion), the report noted.

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